Evidence of meeting #23 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was surveillance.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
Thank you.
Mr. Keenan, thanks for your presentation today.
This is a quote from one of your articles. You say, “We're already in a surveillance society, and there ain't no going back on that.”
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
In this article, they say you're always counting surveillance cameras wherever you go.
How many did you count today?
11:55 a.m.
Professor, University of Calgary, As an Individual
I actually counted 14 just in a very short trip over here.
I met my wife counting surveillance cameras in San Francisco and it took us an hour to find 100. Then we went out on our first date. It was a wonderful date.
11:55 a.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
11:55 a.m.
Professor, University of Calgary, As an Individual
Today I didn't really need to count them, because every one of you is carrying one in your pocket in your cellphone. There are cameras that are so small that you wouldn't know.... I was just looking around this room wondering how hard it would be for someone to hide a camera in here.
We see that at DEF CON all the time. People put in surreptitious devices, not just cameras but even things that pick up your Wi-Fi. They'll leave them at the Starbucks and they can sit there for months transmitting all the data.
So yes, we are in a surveillance society.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
I have some quotes. “These cameras are put up for two primary reasons”, and we are talking about cameras. You're from Calgary, and in Calgary there are upwards of 3,500. Then we talk about Edmonton, which has more than 3,000 cameras. There's one in every bus.
These people are saying that these are put up for protection of assets, public safety, and so on.
Do you agree with that?
11:55 a.m.
Professor, University of Calgary, As an Individual
Sure.
For example, take the Boston Marathon bombing. The best footage of that was from a department store camera pointing out on Massachusetts Avenue, and the police were darn glad that was there. Take the Vancouver Stanley Cup riots. There were citizens' videos. It came to an interesting privacy question actually, which the provincial commissioner had to rule on. Could the police take the licence database and run it up against photos of people looting stores to identify them?
She made a very wise decision. She said that they could submit the looting tape and a third party, the B.C. licensing people, could look at it, but then they needed a judge to unseal the data.
I think we need more oversight, because otherwise you can have a fishing expedition. I use an example in my book of a guy who parked in stall number 11, and he was put in a police computer as a known associate of a Mafioso. That was because the guy who parked in stall 12, unbeknownst to him, was a Mafia don. They would say good morning every day, so under surveillance he got put in there as a “known associate”.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
On another point, you talk about signs warning about cameras.
Do you advocate that signs should be up?
11:55 a.m.
Professor, University of Calgary, As an Individual
There are actually recommendations on the OPC website that say there should be a sign, that the sign should say what the purpose of the camera is, that it's there under the authority of a certain act, and tell you who to call.
Guess what? Toronto has a phone number for the Toronto police. Calgary says to call 311. You could wait on hold for two hours calling 311, so that's not an effective way, plus only the downtown LRT stations have signs. You go out to the sticks and you're not going to have any warning signs at all.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
Again, in this article in the Calgary Herald, it says that cameras don't really deter most crimes.
11:55 a.m.
Professor, University of Calgary, As an Individual
Well, the evidence certainly in the U.K. was something like one crime per 10,000 cameras in one particular study....
I mean, they may. Obviously, if people know they're under surveillance, their behaviour may change, but good old police work actually solves most crimes.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
Would you agree, though, that if signs were up, it would deter more crime?
11:55 a.m.
Professor, University of Calgary, As an Individual
No, I just think that people have—
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Blaine Calkins
Mr. Long, we're well past the seven-minute mark. It was a good set of questions. If we get some time, we'll come back to them.
Mr. Jeneroux, for up to seven minutes, please.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
Thank you, everybody, for being here. I think a few of you are back today. Mr. Keenan, I think it's your first time before us. Again, thank you for being here.
I want to talk a bit about how technology changes so quickly. We have an act that's been around since 1983. However, there are a number of policies which have been implemented at the government level that address a lot of the new technology.
If we say here's what we want to do in 2016 as outlined by the Privacy Commissioner, how does that not become out of date almost immediately in terms of technology?
Could you comment on how you see this progressing and address the policy versus the act argument? I'm hoping to get all of you in on this, if you don't mind.
Noon
Staff Lawyer, Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic
Thanks.
I would point to the Privacy Act's counterpart, PIPEDA, which wasn't introduced quite so long ago but adopted a very principled framework as opposed to a more prescriptive one. Some of our recommendations try to accomplish this, as well as some of the recommendations of some of the other witnesses, but I think if we get to a more principled framework, it allows it to keep up with the changes a little better. Then you still need to always tweak any law really in these days of technological change occasionally, so adding things like a five-year review helps. I think making it a little bit more principled with stuff like an overarching proportionality obligation helps it keep pace with these types of technological changes that we can't really foresee, other than Mr. Keenan here, who has a little bit of a window to the future.
Noon
Conservative
Noon
Director, Privacy, Technology and Surveillance, Canadian Civil Liberties Association
I would agree with Tamir. I think that the solution is to make sure that the law is grounded in principles rather than details and minutiae. Looking at the necessity requirement as well will help, because regardless of what technology was used to collect a piece of information, it's still helpful to ask, do we need it? Was it collected appropriately? Was it collected properly? The idea of appropriately and properly may change versus the technology, but the concepts of needing to know for sure that we've done things based on these core principles doesn't change and allows us to be flexible and keep the law relevant as things change.